


Night of the Apple Schnapps

by Empy (Empyreus)



Category: Shaun of the Dead
Genre: Alcohol, Anger, Drinking, Drunkenness, Frustration, Gaming, Gen, Hanging Out, Nudity, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-24
Updated: 2006-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:11:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1628492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empyreus/pseuds/Empy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Like that time we stayed up all night drinking apple schnapps and playing Tekken 2."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night of the Apple Schnapps

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sheldrake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheldrake/gifts).



> I'm so, so sorry this was late, Sheldrake. (Technical troubles, see.) I hope you enjoy it anyway. :)
> 
> Written for sheldrake.
> 
> Disclaimer: the characters are not mine. I merely play with them and promise to put them back once I'm done.

It was a bit hard to focus on Pete when he spoke, noted Shaun, particularly if you were a bit drunk or tired, because he was so tall that you ended up talking to his shirt pocket first, and that irritated him. Most things irritated him, actually. Missed messages on the ansaphone. The front door, whether open or closed. The Cornetto wrappers that were the visible evidence of Ed's hangovers. Man Parrish. Electro in general. In fact, he seemed to have devoted considerable energy to hating everything that Shaun enjoyed. Or at least some things Shaun enjoyed. It wasn't like he liked the Cornetto wrappers either.

Pete crossed his arms over his chest, then seemed to realize he wouldn't be able to drink anything while he stood like that, and uncrossed his arms again. The stern look on his face remained, however, and Shaun could feel it burning into the back of his neck as he busied himself with his own mug.

"I admit, he can be pretty funny on occasion. Like that time we stayed up all night drinking apple schnapps and playing Tekken 2."

"When was that?" asked Shaun, his brain still struggling to fire the synapses needed to stand upright and listen at the same time.

"Five years ago." Pete's tone was so clipped it would have put a golfing green to shame.

Shaun opened his mouth to protest, but then his mind spun all the pieces the right way around and informed him that yes, it really was five years ago. Fancy that. He remembered it a bit too well, and seeing as he tended to have trouble remembering what he had had for breakfast when lunch came around, he supposed he should have been allowed to go with the assumption that it had been a more recent event. He took a step back and tried to lean on the counter that wasn't there, and only barely managed not to fling the contents of his mug at himself. Hot beverages weren't really a fashion statement, though anything would have improved the cheap white acrylic shirt he had to wear to work.

Five years. Bloody hell. It didn't seem like that at all. On the other hand, may be it did, Shaun reflected as he lifted his gaze and caught Pete's angry scowl. Pete had definitely been more relaxed then, and not the six foot seven inches of livid office worker that currently paced back and forth in the kitchen like a starved pitbull behind a junkyard fence.

 

Five years ago, the three of them had gone rooting through the kitchen cupboards one night, searching for something drinkable, and found a virulently-labelled bottle of equally virulently-coloured apple schnapps. Or at least they had assumed it was apple schnapps, on account of it being green and tasting vaguely like White Lightning. After weighing their choices: a) brave the pouring rain and sleet outside and head to the Winchester for something they actually knew was drinkable and non-toxic or b) brave the contents of the mystery bottle, the outcome had been the logical one. The bottle.

Mismatched shot glasses had been procured (courtesy of a cupboard which also housed several dented tins of baked beans, two earless mugs and a jar of chutney so old they'd considered naming it and charging it rent), jaws had been set and drinks had been slammed back manfully. This had been followed by several seconds of equally manful choking.

"Bloody hell, it tastes like nailpolish," Shaun had choked out. "Gets you right down there."

The schnapps had, nonetheless, been deemed drinkable, and they had taken the bottle to the living room, where they'd bickered pointlessly before moving on to cheat at coin toss in an attempt to determine who would play against whom. The bottle had made several rounds, as had the controllers, the remote control and the coins, and most had ended up down the back of the sofa.

After losing six consecutive Tekken battles, four of which he'd tried to cheat at, Pete had slumped in a chair to the side, remaining oddly monosyllabic but now sporting the kind of grin that only came with very vicious drink. The only sounds had been those of the game, something they all had appreciated, as the apple schnapps had seemed to go to the ears a bit as well, making sounds a bit distorted. Or possibly distorting speech. Shaun hadn't been all that concerned with details after the fourth shot.

"Bottle," Ed had demanded as a new battle loaded, and when he'd stretched his arm out to the side, Pete had merely scowled.

"Use your feet, orangutan boy."

Ed had turned to glare at Pete, and in doing so, had averted his gaze from the tv screen long enough for Shaun to get in a cheap hit. "Cock it!" Ed had sworn as he realized his error, and the bottle had remained unclaimed until Pete had leaned over to grab it after several overlong minutes. Shaun, trying to look at the screen and at Pete at the same time, had managed to catch that Pete had upended the bottle. Apparently he hadn't been able to finish it all, despite having stood up in what seemed an attempt to create as straight a path as possible between bottleneck and liver, as there had been a distinctly wet and sloshing sound as the bottle hit the carpet.

"Fucking fuck," Pete had groaned, then lumbered in the general direction of the stairwell.

 

There had been several muffled thumps from upstairs before a rather alarming silence had descended.

"You suppose he's all right?" Shaun had asked, trying at the same time to get his fingers to obey, something which had only partially worked, as he had suffered a humiliating defeat ten seconds later.

"Dunno." Ed's gaze hadn't left the screen. "Score!"

Shaun had gotten up, spent half a minute trying to convince his sense of balance that he indeed had been standing up and not lying down, and then headed upstairs. Ed had not followed, opting instead to salvage the rest of the mystery schnapps and roundly verbally abuse either the tv set, the game or Pete.

"He's probably passed out naked in the bath, the sad fucker," Ed had called, and Shaun had stopped dead in his tracks. The hallway floor had seemed oddly lumpy as he walked, and as he looked down, he could see Pete's discarded clothing forming a clear, if somewhat crooked path to the open bathroom door. Oh dear.

"No," a sepulchral voice had announced from the bathroom, and a series of alarming squeaking sounds had followed. Shaun had taken a step back as Pete had appeared in the doorway.

 

Ah. Yes. That would have been the reason his mind had been so reluctant to offer up all the details earlier on. It wasn't something he was keen on repeating.

 

Shaun had tried not to look directly at Pete and overshot terribly, the apple schnapps rushing through his head and settling at the back of his skull like a lead weight. His gaze ended up somewhere near the hairline crack that ran from the top of the door to the juncture between ceiling and wall. Pete had still loomed vaguely in the hallway, a compact, shadowy, disturbingly naked and still drunk shape.

"And. The. Front. Door. Is. Open. Again." Pete had intoned, the words spaced wide apart. He'd staggered to the stairwell, managed to descend it without breaking his neck, headed for the door, taken hold of the doorframe with one hand and leaned his not inconsiderable and even less dressed frame out to grope for a door handle that wasn't there. Realizing the door opened inward, he had leaned back in, maneuvered himself behind the door and let his weight propel it forward. The glass in the door had rattled as it slammed shut.

Having satisfactorily managed to close the door, Pete had taken to falling up the stairs. Shaun had winced each time Pete had seemed to dive forward only to catch himself in the nick of time, but not because he had been concerned for Pete's health. No, it had had rather more to do with the fact that he had been forced to watch large portions of Pete's pallid and all-too-naked body lurch around drunkenly with all the grace of a zombie. He gave a mental full-body shiver and cut the memory short. He really, really didn't need to think of naked Pete first thing in the morning. Or ever.

 

Looking up at Pete, now thankfully dressed and sober, Shaun held back a wince at the memory. "Sorry, what?" he asked.

"I asked when he's leaving" Pete said, his tone past clipped. Angry as all hell.

Shaun made a non-committal noise as he turned, feeling Pete's gaze bore into the back of his head, and headed towards the living room.

"Hey man, listen..."


End file.
